The Turkic peoples living along the river formerly referred to it as Itil or Atil. In modern Turkic languages, the Volga is known as İdel (Идел) in Tatar, Атăл (Atăl) in Chuvash, Idhel in Bashkir, Edil in Kazakh, and İdil in Turkish. The Turkic names go back to the ancient Turkic form “Etil/ Ertil”, the origin and meaning of which are not clear. Perhaps this form has a connection with the hydronym Irtesh.[8]

The Turkic peoples associated the Itil's origin with the Kama. Thus, a left tributary to the Kama was named the Aq Itil "White Itil" which unites with the Kara Itil "Black Itil" at the modern city of Ufa; the name Indyl (Indɨl) is used in Adyge (Cherkess) language.

Among Asians,[clarification needed] the river was known by its other Turkic name Sarı-su "yellow water", but the Oirats also used their own name, Ijil mörön or "adaptation river". Presently the Mari, another Uralic group, call the river Jul (Юл), meaning "way" in Tatar. Formerly, they called the river Volgydo, a borrowing from Old East Slavic.

The Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the rivers Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura; the Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which flows through an area of about 1,350,000 square kilometres (521,238 square miles) in the most heavily populated part of Russia.[1] The Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometres (99 miles) and includes as many as 500 channels and smaller rivers; the largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where pelicans, flamingos, and lotuses may be found.[citation needed] The Volga freezes for most of its length for three months each year.[1]

The fertile river valley provides large quantities of wheat, and also has many mineral riches. A substantial petroleum industry centers on the Volga valley. Other resources include natural gas, salt, and potash; the Volga Delta and the Caspian Sea are fishing grounds. Astrakhan, at the delta, is the center of the caviar industry.

Construction of Soviet Union-era dams often involved enforced resettlement of huge numbers of people, as well as destruction of their historical heritage. For instance, the town of Mologa was flooded for the purpose of constructing the Rybinsk Reservoir (then the largest artificial lake in the world); the construction of the Uglich Reservoir caused the flooding of several monasteries with buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. In such cases the ecological and cultural damage often outbalanced any economic advantage.[16]

In modern times, the city on the big bend of the Volga, currently known as Volgograd, witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad, possibly the bloodiest battle in human history, in which the Soviet Union and the German forces were deadlocked in a stalemate battle for access to the river; the Volga was (and still is) a vital transport route between central Russia and the Caspian Sea, which provides access to the oil fields of the Apsheron Peninsula.
Hitler planned to use access to the oil fields of Azerbaijan to fuel future German conquests. Apart from that, whoever held both sides of the river could move forces across the river, to defeat the enemy's fortifications beyond the river.[18] By taking the river, Hitler'sGermany would have been able to move supplies, guns, and men into the northern part of Russia. At the same time, Germany could permanently deny this transport route by the Soviet Union, hampering its access to oil and to supplies via the Persian Corridor.

For this reason, many amphibious military assaults were brought about in an attempt to remove the other side from the banks of the river. In these battles, the Soviet Union was the main offensive side, while the German troops used a more defensive stance, though much of the fighting was close quarters combat, with no clear offensive or defensive side.

Many different ethnicities lived on the Volga river. Numerous were the Eastern Slavic Vyatchi tribes which took a decisive role in the development of modern Russians.[19][20] Among the first recorded people along the upper Volga were also the Finno-Ugric people Mari (Мари) and their west ethnic group named Merya (Мäрӹ). Where the Volga flows through the steppes the area was also inhabited by the Iranian people of the Sarmatians from 200 BC.[21][22] Since ancient times, even before Rus' states developed, the Volga river was a important trade route where not only Slavic, Turkic and Finno-Ugric people lived, but also Arab world of the Middle East met the Varangian people of the Nordic countries through trading.[23][24] In the 8th and 9th centuries colonization also began from Kievan Rus'. Slavs from Kievan Rus' brought Christianity to the upper Volga, and a portion of non-Slavic local people adopted Christianity and gradually became East Slavs; the remainder of the Mari people migrated to the east far inland. In the course of several centuries the Slavs assimilated the indigenous Finnic populations, such as the Merya and Meshchera peoples; the surviving peoples of Volga Finnic ethnicity include the Maris and Mordvins of the middle Volga. Also Khazar and Bulgar peoples inhabited the upper, middle and lower of the Volga River basin.[25]

Apart from the Huns, the earliest Turkic tribes arrived in the 7th century and assimilated some Finnic and Indo-European population on the middle and lower Volga; the MuslimTatars are descendants of the population of medieval Volga Bulgaria. Another Turkic group, the Nogais, formerly inhabited the lower Volga steppes.

The Volga region is home to a German minority group, the Volga Germans. Catherine the Great had issued a Manifesto in 1763 inviting all foreigners to come and populate the region, offering them numerous incentives to do so; this was partly to develop the region but also to provide a buffer zone between the Russians and the Mongols to the East. Because of conditions in German territories, Germans responded in the largest numbers. Under the Soviet Union a slice of the region was turned into the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Others were executed or dispersed throughout the Soviet Union prior to and after World War II.[citation needed]

The Volga, widened for navigation purposes with construction of huge dams during the years of Joseph Stalin's industrialization, is of great importance to inland shipping and transport in Russia: all the dams in the river have been equipped with large (double) ship locks, so that vessels of considerable dimensions can travel from the Caspian Sea almost to the upstream end of the river.

This infrastructure has been designed for vessels of a relatively large scale (lock dimensions of 290 by 30 metres (951 ft × 98 ft) on the Volga, slightly smaller on some of the other rivers and canals) and it spans many thousands of kilometers. A number of formerly state-run, now mostly privatized, companies operate passenger and cargo vessels on the river; Volgotanker, with over 200 petroleum tankers, is one of them.

In the later Soviet era, up to the modern times, grain and oil have been among the largest cargo exports transported on the Volga.
[26] Until recently access to the Russian waterways was granted to foreign vessels on a very limited scale; the increasing contacts between the European Union and Russia have led to new policies with regard to the access to the Russian inland waterways. It is expected that vessels of other nations will be allowed on Russian rivers soon.[27]

The Volga Delta is the largest river delta in Europe, occurs where Europe's largest river system, the Volga River, drains into the Caspian Sea in Russia's Astrakhan Oblast, north-east of the republic of Kalmykia. The delta is located in the Caspian Depression—the far eastern part of the delta lies in Kazakhstan; the delta drains into the Caspian 60 km downstream from the city of Astrakhan. The Volga Delta has grown in the 20th century because of changes in the level of the Caspian Sea. In 1880, the delta had an area of 3,222 km². Today the Volga Delta covers an area of 27,224 km² and is 160 km across, it has a classical "delta pattern". The delta lies in the arid climate zone, characterized by little rainfall; the region receives less in July in normal years. Strong winds sweep across the delta and form linear dunes. Along the front of the delta, one will find muddy sand shoals and coquina banks; the changing level of the Caspian Sea has resulted in three distinct zones in the delta. The higher areas of the first zone are known as "Baer's mounds," named after researcher Karl Ernst von Baer who worked in this region.

These mounds are linear ridges of clayey sands, ranging from 5 to 22 m in height and 400 m to 10 km in length. Between the Baer's mounds are depressions that fill with water and become either fresh or saline bays; these depressions, called "ilmens", used to form part of the early deep river delta but became separated from it. Because of their isolation from the fresh waters of the Volga, they are becoming saline. Together they form a "vast and diverse area of western substeppe ilmens" which, because of the varying degrees of wetness and salinization, house a wealth of flora and fauna; the origin of these mounds and ilmens is still debated: the early suggestion that they were formed by aeolian action is now discredited, now they are thought to have arisen either underwater or through river flow. The second zone, in the delta proper has little relief, is the site of active and abandoned water channels, small dunes and algal flats; the third zone is composed of a broad platform extending up to 60 km offshore, is the submarine part of the delta.

The delta has been protected since the early 1900s, with one of the first Russian nature preserves having been set up there in 1919. Much of its local fauna is considered endangered; the delta is a major staging area for many species of water birds and passerines. Although the delta is best known for its sturgeons and carp are found in large numbers in the delta region; the lotus has been adopted as the motif of the national flag of the neighbouring Kalmyks, since it is a venerated symbol in their Buddhist beliefs – they are the sole European people of Mongolian origin. Industrial and agricultural modification to the delta plain has resulted in significant wetland loss. Between 1984 and 2001, the delta lost 277 km² of wetlands, or an average of 16 km² per year, from natural and human-induced causes; the Volga discharges large amounts of industrial waste and sediment into the shallow northern part of the Caspian Sea. The added fertilizers nourish the algal blooms that grow on the surface of the sea, allowing them to grow larger.

Wetland Loss in World Deltas, Coastal Studies Institute, Louisiana State University wetlands.org Earth Snapshot article "The Three Zones of the Volga Delta" Volga River Delta at NASA Earth Observatory Volga Delta at Natural Heritage Protection Fund

Astrakhan is a city in southern Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on two banks of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of 28 meters below sea level; as of the 2010 Census, its population was 520,339. The oldest economic and cultural center of the Lower Volga, it is called the southernmost outpost of Russia and the Caspian capital; the city is a member of the Eurasian Regional Office of the World Organization "United Cities and Local Governments" Its population is diverse and includes one hundred ethnicities and fourteen religious denominations. The city is located in the upper part of the Volga delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression; the distance to Moscow by road is 1,411 kilometers. The name is a corruption of Hashtarkhan, itself a corruption of Haji Tarkhan—a name amply evidenced in the medieval writings. Tarkhan is a Turco-Mongolian title standing for "great khan," or "king", while haji or hajji is a title given to one who has made the Islamic requisite of pilgrimage to Mecca.

Together, they denoted "the king who has visited Mecca." The city has given its name to the particular pelts from young karakul sheep, in particular to the hats traditionally made from the pelts. Colloquially, the city is known by the short form Astra. Another popular nickname is The Caspian Capital Astrakhan is in the Volga Delta, rich in sturgeon and exotic plants; the fertile area contained the capitals of Khazaria and the Golden Horde. Astrakhan was first mentioned by travelers in the early 13th century as Xacitarxan. Tamerlane burnt it to the ground in 1395 during his war with the Golden Horde. From 1459 to 1556, Xacitarxan was the capital of Astrakhan Khanate; the ruins of this medieval settlement were found by archaeologists 12 km upstream from the modern-day city. Starting in A. D. 1324, Ibn Battuta, the famous Muslim traveler, began his pilgrimage from his native city of Tangier, present-day Morocco to Mecca. Along the 75,000 mile trek, that took nearly 29 years, Ibn Battuta came in contact with many new cultures which he writes about in his diaries.

One specific country that he passed through on his journey was the Golden Horde ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan, located on the Volga River in southern Russia. He claims the Athal is, “one of the greatest rivers in the world.”. In the winter, when the weather is cold, the Muslim ruler, or Sultan, stays in Astrakhan. Due to this cold water, the King orders the people of Astrakhan to lay many bundles of hay down on the frozen river, he does this to allow the people to travel over the ice. When Battuta and the King spoke about Battuta visiting Constantinople, which the King granted him permission to do, the King gifted Battuta with fifteen hundred dinars, many horses and a dress of honor. In 1556, the khanate was conquered by Ivan the Terrible, who had a new fortress, or kremlin, built on a steep hill overlooking the Volga in 1558; this year is traditionally considered to be the foundation of the modern city. In 1569, during the Russo-Turkish War, Astrakhan was besieged by the Ottoman army, which had to retreat in disarray.

A year the Ottoman sultan renounced his claims to Astrakhan, thus opening the entire Volga River to Russian traffic. The Ottoman Empire, though militarily defeated, insisted on safe passage for Muslim pilgrims and traders from Central Asia as well as the destruction of the Russian's fort on the Terek river. In the 17th century, the city was developed as a Russian gate to the Orient. Many merchants from Armenia, Safavid Persia, Mughal India and Khiva khanate settled in the town, giving it a cosmopolitan character. For seventeen months in 1670 -- 1671, Astrakhan was held by his Cossacks. Early in the following century, Peter the Great constructed a shipyard here and made Astrakhan the base for his hostilities against Persia, in the same century Catherine the Great accorded the city important industrial privileges; the city rebelled against the Tsar once again in 1705, when it was held by the Cossacks under Kondraty Bulavin. A Kalmuck khan laid an abortive siege to the kremlin several years before that.

In 1711, it became the seat of a governorate, whose first governors included Artemy Petrovich Volynsky and Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev. Six years Astrakhan served as a base for the first Russian venture into Central Asia, it was granted town status in 1717. In 1702, 1718 and 1767, it suffered from fires. Astrakhan's kremlin was built from the 1580s to the 1620s from bricks taken from the site of Sarai Berke, its two impressive cathedrals were consecrated in 1710, respectively. Built by masters from Yaroslavl, they retain many traditional features of Russian church architecture, while their exterior decoration is baroque. In March 1919 after a failed workers' revolt against Bolshevik rule, 3,000 to 5,000 people were executed in less than a week by the Cheka under orders from Sergey Kirov; some victims were thrown into the Volga. During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the A-A line running from Astrakhan to Arkhangelsk was to be the eastern limit of German military operation and occupation.

The plan was never carried out, as Germany captured neither Moscow. In the autumn of 1942, the region to the west of Astrakhan became one of the easternmost points in t

The dam's power plant generates electricity for the Volta River Authority, the reservoir provides water transport routes. It may be a resource for fish farming; the depth of the river is about 45 feet below Lake Volta. The Volta River is crossed by the Adome Bridge just below the Akosombo Dam; the Volta River was named by Portuguese gold traders in Ghana. It was their farthest extent of exploration before returning. "River of return" or “river of the bend”, in reference to its curved course. Impacts of the Akosombo Hydroelectric Project — environmental and human health issues from the Akosombo Dam and Lake Volta. Media related to Volta River at Wikimedia Commons

A reservoir is, most an enlarged natural or artificial lake, pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, through excavation, or building any number of retaining walls or levees. Defined as a storage space for fluids, reservoirs may hold gasses, including hydrocarbons. Tank reservoirs elevated, or buried tanks. Tank reservoirs for water are called cisterns. Most underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum, below ground. Reservoir is most an enlarged natural or artificial lake. A dam constructed in a valley relies on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the reservoir. Dams are located at a narrow part of a valley downstream of a natural basin; the valley sides act as natural walls, with the dam located at the narrowest practical point to provide strength and the lowest cost of construction.

In many reservoir construction projects, people have to be moved and re-housed, historical artifacts moved or rare environments relocated. Examples include the temples of Abu Simbel, the relocation of the village of Capel Celyn during the construction of Llyn Celyn, the relocation of Borgo San Pietro of Petrella Salto during the construction of Lake Salto. Construction of a reservoir in a valley will need the river to be diverted during part of the build through a temporary tunnel or by-pass channel. In hilly regions, reservoirs are constructed by enlarging existing lakes. Sometimes in such reservoirs, the new top water level exceeds the watershed height on one or more of the feeder streams such as at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales. In such cases additional side dams are required to contain the reservoir. Where the topography is poorly suited to a single large reservoir, a number of smaller reservoirs may be constructed in a chain, as in the River Taff valley where the Llwyn-on, Cantref and Beacons Reservoirs form a chain up the valley.

Coastal reservoirs are fresh water storage reservoirs located on the sea coast near the river mouth to store the flood water of a river. As the land based reservoir construction is fraught with substantial land submergence, coastal reservoir is preferred economically and technically since it does not use scarce land area. Many coastal reservoirs were constructed in Europe. Saemanguem in South Korea, Marina Barrage in Singapore and Plover Cove in China, etc are few existing coastal reservoirs. Where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or size, bank-side reservoirs may be built to store the water; such reservoirs are formed by excavation and by building a complete encircling bund or embankment, which may exceed 6 km in circumference. Both the floor of the reservoir and the bund must have an impermeable lining or core: these were made of puddled clay, but this has been superseded by the modern use of rolled clay; the water stored in such reservoirs may stay there for several months, during which time normal biological processes may reduce many contaminants and eliminate any turbidity.

The use of bank-side reservoirs allows water abstraction to be stopped for some time, when the river is unacceptably polluted or when flow conditions are low due to drought. The London water supply system is one example of the use of bank-side storage: the water is taken from the River Thames and River Lee. Service reservoirs store treated potable water close to the point of distribution. Many service reservoirs are constructed as water towers as elevated structures on concrete pillars where the landscape is flat. Other service reservoirs can be entirely underground in more hilly or mountainous country. In the United Kingdom, Thames Water has many underground reservoirs, sometimes called cisterns, built in the 1800s, most of which are lined with brick. A good example is the Honor OakReservoir in London, constructed between 1901 and 1909; when it was completed it was said to be the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world and it is still one of the largest in Europe. This reservoir now forms part of the southern extension of the Thames Water Ring Main.

The top of the reservoir is now used by the Aquarius Golf Club. Service reservoirs perform several functions, including ensuring sufficient head of water in the water distribution system and providing water capacity to out peak demand from consumers, enabling the treatment plant to run at optimum efficiency. Large service reservoirs can be managed to reduce the cost of pumping, by refilling the reservoir at times of day when energy costs are low. Circa 3 000 BC, the craters of extinct volcanoes in Arabia were used as reservoirs by farmers for their irrigation water. Dry climate and water scarcity in India led to early development of stepwells and water resource management techniques, including the building of a reservoir at Girnar in 3000 BC. Artificial lakes dating to the 5th century BC have been found in ancient Greece; the artificial Bhojsagar lake in present-day Madhya Pradesh state of India, constructed in the 11th century, covered 650 square kilometres. In Sri Lanka large reservoirs were created by ancient Sinhalese kings in order to save the water for irrigation.

The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethno-linguistic groups of Central, Eastern and Western Asia as well as parts of Europe and North Africa. They speak related languages belonging to the Turkic language family, they share, to certain cultural traits, common ancestry and historical backgrounds. In time, different Turkic groups came in contact with other ethnicities, absorbing them, leaving some Turkic groups more diverse than the others. Many vastly differing ethnic groups have throughout history become part of the Turkic peoples through language shift, intermixing and religious conversion. In their genetic compositions, most Turkic groups differ in origins from one group to the next. Despite this, many do share, to varying degrees, non-linguistic characteristics, including certain cultural traits, some ancestry from a common gene pool, historical experiences; the most notable modern Turkic-speaking ethnic groups include Turkish people, Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz people. The first known mention of the term Turk applied to a Turkic group was in reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century.

A letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as "the Great Turk Khan." The Orhun inscriptions use the terms Turuk. Previous use of similar terms are of unknown significance, although some feel that they are evidence of the historical continuity of the term and the people as a linguistic unit since early times; this includes Chinese records Spring and Autumn Annals referring to a neighbouring people as Beidi. During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the "Turcae" in the forests north of the Sea of Azov, Pliny the Elder lists the "Tyrcae" among the people of the same area. There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names could be the original form of "Türk/Türük" such as Togarma, Turukha/Turuška, Turukku and so on, but the information gap is so substantial that we cannot connect these ancient people to the modern Turks. TurkologistAndrás Róna-Tas posits that the term Turk could be rooted in the East IranianSaka language or in Turkic. However, it is accepted that the term "Türk" is derived from the Old-Turkic migration-term Türük/Törük, which means "created", "born", or "strong", from the Old Turkic word root *türi-/töri- and conjugated with Old Turkic suffix from Proto-Turkic *türi-k, from the Proto-Turkic word root *töŕ from a Proto-Altaic source *t`ŏ̀ŕe.

This etymological concept is related to Old Turkic word stems'tür','türi-','törü' and'töz'. The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Dingling and Xinli, located in South Siberia; the Chinese Book of Zhou presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from "helmet", explaining that this name comes from the shape of a mountain where they worked in the Altai Mountains. According to Persian tradition, as reported by 11th-century ethnographerMahmud of Kashgar and various other traditional Islamic scholars and historians, the name "Turk" stems from Tur, one of the sons of Japheth. During the Middle Ages, various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe were subsumed under the identity of the "Scythians". Between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples. In the modern Turkish language as used in the Republic of Turkey, a distinction is made between "Turks" and the "Turkic peoples" in loosely speaking: the term Türk corresponds to the "Turkish-speaking" people, while the term Türki refers to the people of modern "Turkic Republics".

However, the proper usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for vice versa, it is agreed that the first Turkic people lived in a region extending from eastern Central Asia to Siberia, with the majority of them living in today China. A ethnolinguistic study claims that the Turkic people originated somewhere in modern Manchuria and adopted a nomadic lifestyle and started a migration to the west. Another research, based on genetic data of ancient Turkic samples and origin and homeland somewhere in Northeastern China, it is estimated that the ancient Turkic peoples belonged predominantly to the yDNAHaplogroup C-M217 with a medium distribution of Haplogroup Q-M242 and Haplogroup N-M231. They were established after the 6th century BCE; the earliest separate Turkic peoples appeared on the peripheries of the late Xiongnu confederation about 200 BCE. Turkic people may be related to the Xiongnu and Tiele people.

According to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi, the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period. Turkic tribes such as the Khazars and Pechenegs lived as nomads for many years before establishing the Turkic Khaganate or Göktürk Empire in the 6th century; these were herdsmen and nobles. The first mention of

This "thaw" did not last long. The end of the 20th century was a difficult period for Russian literature, with few distinct voices. Among the most discussed authors of this period were Victor Pelevin, who gained popularity with short stories and novels and playwright Vladimir Sorokin, the poet Dmitri Prigov. In the 21st century, a new generation of Russian authors appeared, differing from the postmodernist Russian prose of the late 20th century, which lead critics to speak about "new realism". Russian authors have contributed to numerous literary genres. Russia has five Nobel Prize in literature laureates; as of 2011, Russia was the fourth largest book producer in the world in terms of published titles. A popular folk saying claims Russians are "the world's most reading nation". Old Russian literature consists of several masterpieces written in the Old East Slavic; the main type of Old Russian historical literature were chronicles, most of them anonymous. Anonymous works include The Tale of Igor's Campaign and Praying of Daniel the Immured.

Hagiographies formed a popular genre of the Old Russian literature. Life of Alexander Nevsky offers a well-known example. Other Russian literary monuments include Zadonschina, Synopsis and A Journey Beyond the Three Seas. Bylinas – oral folk epics – fused Christian and pagan traditions. Medieval Russian literature had an overwhelmingly religious character and used an adapted form of the Church Slavonic language with many South Slavic elements; the first work in colloquial Russian, the autobiography of the archpriestAvvakum, emerged only in the mid-17th century. After taking the throne at the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great's influence on the Russian culture would extend far into the 18th century. Peter's reign during the beginning of the 18th century initiated a series of modernizing changes in Russian literature; the reforms he implemented encouraged Russian artists and scientists to make innovations in their crafts and fields with the intention of creating an economy and culture comparable.

Peter's example set a precedent for the remainder of the 18th century as Russian writers began to form clear ideas about the proper use and progression of the Russian language. Through their debates regarding versification of the Russian language and tone of Russian literature, the writers in the first half of the 18th century were able to lay foundation for the more poignant, topical work of the late 18th century. Satirist Antiokh Dmitrievich Kantemir, 1708–1744, was one of the earliest Russian writers not only to praise the ideals of Peter I's reforms but the ideals of the growing Enlightenment movement in Europe. Kantemir's works expressed his admiration for Peter, most notably in his epic dedicated to the emperor entitled Petrida. More however, Kantemir indirectly praised Peter's influence through his satiric criticism of Russia's “superficiality and obscurantism,” which he saw as manifestations of the backwardness Peter attempted to correct through his reforms. Kantemir honored this tradition of reform not only through his support for Peter

The area of Tver Oblast is the 38th of 85 subjects. This is 0.49% of the territory of Russia. The largest area the size of the territory of the Central Federal District. Tver Oblast as a whole is characterized by flat terrain with alternating highlands. In the western part of the province, occupying about one-third of its area is Valdai Hills, with elevations of 200–300 m above sea level, it is surrounded by depressions, lowlands have a height of 100–150 m highest point of the area has a height of 347 m, is located on a hill Tsninsky. The low point - the extreme north-west area of the river's edge Kunya on the border with the Novgorod Oblast. Minerals discovered and developed in the Tver Oblast are deposits of ancient seas and swamps, a consequence of glaciers. Minerals of industrial importance are the seams of brown coal Moscow coal basin; the largest deposit is Bolshoy Nelidovskiy, which gave between 1996 about 21 million tons. Widespread powerful peat deposits totaling 15.4 billion m³. The estimated reserves of peat are 2,051 million tonnes, representing 7% of the stock of European Russia.

On an industrial scale mastered 43 peat deposits with a total area of about 300 hectares, the main exploited stocks are concentrated in five fields located in the central and southern parts of the oblast. From 1971 to 1999, has developed more than 44 million tons of peat. Distributed limestones. Dolomitic limestones are common along rivers Vazuza, Tsna, there are deposits of tile and pottery of clay and quartz sand, sapropel are numerous underground fresh water and mineral formations, open sources; the region is a watershed of the Caspian Baltic Sea. In the south, Belsky district has several tributaries of the upper reaches of the river Vop, the right tributary of the Dnieper River. Go to the Caspian Sea basin owns 70% of the region, the Baltic Sea - 29.7%. In the region of more than 800 rivers longer than 10 km total length of about 17,000 km; the main river - Volga. Its source is in Ostashkov area; the most important tributaries of the Volga: Mologa, Tvertsa. Other important rivers: the Western Dvina and its tributary Meza and Cna.

The climate is humid continental, transitional from continental Russia to the more humid north-western regions. The area lies in a zone of comfort for living and recreation climatic conditions. Average January temperatures range from −8 °C in west to −13 °C in northeast, July from +17 °C to +19 °C °C; the average annual rainfall ranges from 560 to 720 mm, the greatest amount of precipitation falls on the western slopes of the Valdai Hills. The snow cover starts at the mid-November, the period with snow cover lasts 130–150 days, snow depth is about 40–60 cm, with a maximum of 80 cm. There was a settlement on the point of land at the confluence of the Tmaka River and Volga rivers in the 9th and 10th centuries. A fortress was built on the site much during the fighting between the Rostov-Suzdal princes and Novgorod Republic. During the Soviet period, the high authority in the oblast was shared between three persons: The first secretary of the TverCPSU Committee, the chairman of the oblast Soviet, the Chairman of the oblast Executive Committee.

Since 1991, CPSU lost all the power, the head of the Oblast administration, the governor was appointed/elected alongside elected regional parliament. The Charter of Tver Oblast is the fundamental law of the region; the Legislative Assembly of Tver Oblast is the province's standing legislative body. The Legislative Assembly exercises its authority by passing laws and other legal acts and by supervising the implementation and observance of the laws and other legal acts passed by it; the highest executive body is the Oblast Administration, which includes territorial executive bodies such as district administrations and commissions that facilitate development and run the day to day matters of the province. The Oblast administration supports the activities of the Governor, the highest official and acts as guarantor of the observance of the oblast Charter in accordance with t

Ulyanovsk is a city and the administrative center of Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Volga River 705 kilometers east of Moscow. Population: 613,786 ; 635,947 ; 625,155 .The city, founded as Simbirsk, is the birthplace of Alexander …

Tver is a city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. Population: 414,606; 403,606; 408,903; 450,941 .Located 180 kilometres northwest of Moscow, Tver was formerly the capital of a powerful …

Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is …

A completely frozen Volga River in Yaroslavl (winter 2006)

Yaroslav the Wise stands over the body of the bear which he, according to legend, killed before founding the city

Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,243,500, it is the sixth most populous city in Russia. Kazan is one of the largest religious, economic, political, scientific …

Samara, known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev, is the sixth largest city in Russia and the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Some statistics indicate that it is the eighth or ninth-largest city by population. rather …

Saratov is a city and the administrative center of Saratov Oblast, Russia, and a major port on the Volga River located upstream of Volgograd. Population: 837,900 ; 873,055 ; 904,643 . — Etymology — The …

Astrakhan is a city in southern Russia and the administrative center of Astrakhan Oblast. The city lies on two banks of the Volga River, close to where it discharges into the Caspian Sea at an altitude of 28 meters …

The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is an endorheic basin located between Europe and Asia, to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the broad steppe of …

Astrakhan Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in southern Russia. Its administrative center is the city of Astrakhan. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,010,073. — Geography — Astrakhan is traversed by the …

A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as …

Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. — Since around 1850, Europe is …

Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits, 17 million within the urban area and 20 million within the metropolitan area. Moscow is one of Russia's federal cities. — Moscow is the …

A reservoir is, most commonly, an enlarged natural or artificial lake, pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. — Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water …

Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to the Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in …

Folklore of Russia is folklore of Russians and other ethnic groups of Russia. — Russian folklore takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are also an important part of Slavic mythology. The oldest bylinas of Kievan …

The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethno-linguistic groups of Central, Eastern, Northern and Western Asia as well as parts of Europe and North Africa. They speak related languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits, common ancestry …

Atil, literally meaning "Big River", was the capital of Khazaria from the middle of the 8th century until the end of the 10th century. The word is also a Turkic name for the Volga River. — History — Atil was located along the Volga delta at the …

Nizhny Novgorod, colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is a city in Russia and the administrative center of Volga Federal District and Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. From 1932 to 1990, it was known as Gorky, after …

A drainage basin is any area of land where precipitation collects and drains off into a common outlet, such as into a river, bay, or other body of water. The drainage basin includes all the surface water from rain runoff, snowmelt, and nearby streams that run downslope towards the shared outlet, as …

Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of …

The Volga Delta is the largest river delta in Europe, and occurs where Europe's largest river system, the Volga River, drains into the Caspian Sea in Russia's Astrakhan Oblast, north-east of the republic of Kalmykia. The delta is located in the Caspian Depression—the far eastern part of the delta …

Volga Delta and northwestern Caspian Sea. While most of the purple seen in this image appears to be diluted mud, some may be phytoplankton or algal blooms, particularly in the lower right corner of the image.

The Volta River is the main river system in the West African country of Ghana. It flows into Ghana from Bobo-Dioulasso highlands of Burkina Faso. The main part of the river are the Black Volta, the White Volta, and the Red Volta. In the northwest, the Black Volta forms the international boundaries …

The Valdai Hills are an upland region in the north-west of central Russia running north-south, about midway between Saint Petersburg and Moscow, spanning Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver, Pskov, and Smolensk Oblasts. — The Valdai Hills are a popular tourist …

A river mouth is the part of a river where the river debouches into another river, a lake, a reservoir, a sea, or an ocean. — Water motion — The water from a river can enter the receiving body in a variety of different ways. The motion of a river is influenced by the relative density of the river …

The port and city are the southern terminus of the Suez Canal which flows through Egypt and debouches into the Mediterranean Sea near Port Said.

European Russia is the western part of the Russian Federation, which is part of Eastern Europe. With a population of 110 million people, European Russia has about 77% of Russia's population, but covers less than 25% of Russia's territory. European Russia includes Moscow and Saint Petersburg, the …

Russia in Europe and Asia with current administrative divisions (de facto boundaries).

Avestan, also known historically as Zend, refers to two languages: Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. The languages are known only from their use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, from which they derive their …

Eric Banadinović, known professionally as Eric Bana, is an Australian actor and comedian. He began his career in the sketch comedy series Full Frontal before his first movie, comedy-drama The Castle, got him noticed by global audiences. Soon after he gained critical …

The Battle of Poltava was the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia, also known as "the Great," over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld, in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. — It is widely believed by historians to have been the beginning of the …

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne in the Gironde department in Southwestern France. — The municipality of Bordeaux proper has a population of 252,040. Together with its suburbs and satellite towns …

Duesenberg Motors Company was an American manufacturer of race cars and luxury automobiles. It was founded by brothers August and Frederick Duesenberg in 1913 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where they built engines and race cars. The brothers moved their operations to …